Some ideas on how to improve performance of the servers

Professionally I am a server admin for hosting company, and I see issues like this for web services quite a bit (IE expected 5k visitors, end up with 30k) and it can be crazy trying to compensate. I give SE credit for trying, and while I don't particularly enjoy being rate limited, I understand.

Ultimately SE got way better response for ARR then they expected. After this is all fixed, I think the project management team needs to re-think how they determine appropriate resources.

On to ways that server performance may be improved. Keep in mind that I do not know the platform that SE is using for the systems, and I could be completely off track.

1. Improve performance by using AFK player's computers for extra power
-- Instead of kicking users off the servers, use the computers to process minor tasks, relieving the workload from the server. You can batch processes off from the server to client systems and wait for a completed process. I do not recommend passing sensitive data obviously and safe gaurds would need to be put into place. For players that do not want to participate in that function have a mandatory AFK time out of 25 minutes.

2. This maybe already in use, but for the number users that are attempting to log in at one time it may be worth using a database software that allows for a multi-master cluster, and look into some caching (like for the server status list) and sharding for data that does not need to maintain ACID compliance.

3. I pray that you are using linux, and that you have already increase the ulimit and tossed your session management into RAM or NVRAM.

4. Assuming you are running Linux, utilize GFS2 for multiple frontend servers to use the same data set (if needed) and cluster the services. High performance SAN helps a lot in this.

5. The argument for virtualization could be made here in that if you are clustering servers, having a template that is already configured will make life a lot easier when trying to get new systems online. Again a High Performance SAN is definitely needed, with 10GB storage network.

I said it once, and I will say it again. I may be completely off base with this. I do not know SE's build for the game, though instead of being a child and talking about how awful the launch has been I offer some ideas from a professional stand point that may or may not help issues. If anyone from SE wants more information let me know, you guys have my email. :cool: